So I’m building a mid-range gaming desktop for my girlfriend for her Christmas/Birthday present. I’ve never really gotten into AMD other than one time when I switched from my GTX 970 to an RX 580 and ended up returning it because it pooped out on me after a few hours of use.
Already have
SanDisk SSD (already owned, it’s an extra)
Corsair RAM
Thermaltake PSU
MSI mobo
I’ll probably encourage her to buy a 1TB SSHD or something for game storage eventually. 480GB is good enough for starting out, but I’m aware that it’ll fill up very quickly if she ever gets into some new games.
So basically, she needs a case, CPU, and GPU. This is what I’m thinking of going with. The potential issues warning says some B350 mobo’s need a BIOS update prior to working with some Ryzen CPU’s. Sounds kinda stupid to me, but that’s not a difficult fix. Unless there’s something I’m ignorant about there. Any ideas? I’m new to AMD for the most part.
And the other thing I’m wondering is would it be worth upgrading to an RX 580? It’s about $30 more than the 570, but is it much better? She really isn’t going to be doing anything crazy. Probably just 1080p on max settings with semi-recent games. Right now she pretty much only plays the OLD Harry Potter games on PC, but she does express interest in some of the games I’ve shown her, and I might try to get her into WoW or something. Nothing that requires a GTX 1080 though, or even a 1070.
2 large issues with this build - the GPU and the case.
First off the GPU is MSI. I have had so many issues with that brand in the past I rather not touch it. And then it have no backplate. All the weight of the cooler is entirely on the PCB.
And secondly the case… For the last few years I am massively disliking everything out of Fractal Design. This one is no different. Closed off front, PSU shroud, glass, because everything have to be glass nowadays…
If you are hard set on FD, let it be meshify c… The same garbage, but at least it have good airflow.
There’s still a vent in front though I believe, unless the slots are just there for looks. It’s just not wide-open like something like my TT V21. It’s not my favorite look, but the girlfriend likes it. She wants simplistic, but also able to see the inside, with no obvious logos on the case.
She’s not a fan of mesh, unfortunately. There would be so many more options, but she wants something really plain with a side window and no logos.
Thinking about getting this GPU now.
Maybe I can convince her to just buy it since it’s on sale. She’s supposed to be buying some of the parts for it anyways. I’m just paying for most of it. We don’t make enough money to spend several hundreds of dollars on presents
Depending on when the birthday is. I would say wait for navi launch at CES (12th january). Wether or not we’ll have cards to actually buy right after CES, I’m not really sure. But they seem really good if the rumored specs and prices are even close to what they say they will be.
If you want a GPU now I’d say Saphire RX580 or RX590. I don’t know much about the msi cards. But I’ve had my hands on many Saphire and XFX cards. Would say the saphire once are better in terms of cooling and stuff. Costs about the same anyways. Only downer would be the baby blue on the RX590 they make. But otherwise it’s a good card, if you girlfriend does not mind that. It’s pretty amazing actually how well the saphire cards are made for not really any price premium at all imo. (that is comparing them to the 1060’s you’d get in that price range)
I’d also get a B450 board. The tomahawk is fine. There is also the mortar (witch is a little cheaper) but matx board. They have pretty good VRM and features for the price. Only thing people always bring up is that you cannot do a voltage offset to save some power and reduce noise. But you otherwise cannot do much wrong with those boards at the price they come at.
850w at 113€ is a bit overkill. I would say look for a 650w PSU. Seasonic is really good. The focus 80+ gold cost about 20-30€ less than this one. Either way you don’t need 850w.
SSD I would get 860 evo. But depends on how expensive it is in your country. They are really about the same +/- 5€ compared to sandisk and crucial offerings in austria. But ive had friends from somewhere else report price differences as much as 40€ to the crucial mmx500. So then I would not do that either.
Welp, as long as she is cool with it not cooling very well there certainly a lot of cases in that grouping. But then again with that AMD setup the heat shouldn’t be too bad.
At 210 bucks that 580 8GB will serve far longer and better.
Her’s is Jan 17th, so not too long after. It’s not really a big deal having to wait a little bit (like a month) if they’re released right after they’re announced, but I also don’t want to have to worry about them being sold out. The other thing is the current gen cards are cheap right now. I don’t know how the next-gen is going to be priced (although I’d assume it wouldn’t be too much more, but they’d also not be one sale). I doubt she’ll need anything better than the current offerings anyways.
That’s another option I was considering. A bit more expensive. Not too much more though. And they look nice. The black one would match the case nicely.
I’ll look into it. The mobo may be outside of my return period, but maybe not. I bought it at the beginning of December because it was part of her Christmas present.
I actually paid $95 for mine. The pic just shows the Amazon price because it’s whatever PCPartPicker goes with.
I would too, except I already have a spare SanDisk sitting around, so SanDisk is free for me
I’m sure she’ll be more than happy with it. She’s been using the same $400 Acer laptop since like 2013.
I’ve warned her. She seams pretty set on a certain style though. I’m not too worried about overheating, but she may end up having to learn the hard way.
I dont really see anything wrong with the build OP. Might opt for slightly faster ram or ram that is lower latency but it looks like a solid parts list. I agree with the PSU being overkill. I also am not a fan of MSI stuff as I have a laptop from them that LOVES thermal throttling due to insufficient cooling capacity but I’m not sure if this is really the case for their GPUs or mobos.
If she decides she wants to play more recent games that could be the difference between buying and not buying a new card. Sure it’ll work for now with older games and if she sticks to that great, but a fair bit more performance for not much more money in order for a bit more future proofing is not a bad thing. But then again the OP should be in a better position to evaluate his SO then we are, hopefully
Physics don’t care about taste. Air cooled systems need air… surprise, surprise. Depending on workload and clockspeeds the define C might be ok or not. It is probably even quieter than most mesh cases when the system isn’t doing much. But that isn’t the goal for anyone who is building a new PC, is it? The moment heat hits the fans will have to compensate by spinning way up and at that point the quiet factor is out the window.
I’m going with the SanDisk just for now since I already own it. I’m even doing alright with just my 500GB 860 Evo with games on it (of course that’s not with all my games installed, just the bare minimum), and I’m sure she won’t have anything big on there to start out with. If she decides she likes gaming enough, I might just giver her my 1TB SSHD.
I haven’t really heard anything bad about their GPU’s, but @psycho_666 brings up a good point about it not having a backplate.
I’m aware, and I made sure she is as well. I think the Define C will be enough for what she needs it for (normal use like web browsing, maybe some MS Word, and light to medium gaming). If not, she may just have to deal with not having a front panel until she buys a new case .
Ya I’ll have to think about it some more. I would like to have one though. But it also depends on what the market looks like when I’m ready to buy one. Right now, there are some pretty good deals on 580’s. If I can convince my girlfriend to buy one that’s what we’ll go with. I’ve already spent my allotment this month
Well obviously if you can get another card with one for the same price, I say go for it. It sounds like you’re not sure if the GF will be totally invested in gaming just yet and a 570 makes a decent stopgap for higher end cards if she wants to go that route. I say stick with cheap and if she really gets into it you can look at that when the time comes. If you spend more now and she doesnt really get into it then you have a nice, super high end web browser.
My wife loved the idea of gaming and wanted her own high-ish end gaming machine. So off the the online retailers I went. I had a spare 6600k and money burning a hole in my pocket. After deciding on what her needs might be, I bought 16gb of ram, a nice bitfenix ITX case and z270 board, with purple fans of her choice. I found a great deal on a EVGA 1070, and off to the races we were.
About a year later she opted for a laptop because it was more mobile and she wasnt playing games on her PC anyway.
Its now our HTPC. A job that could be satisfied with an i3 and a 750ti, which is also the way I was leaning originally. Silly me.
Exactly. I know she likes her Harry Potter games, but she’s obsessed with Harry Potter in general. I’ve played WoW with her before and she seemed to enjoy it, but she also doesn’t want to pay the subscription (I’d gladly pay it if she really wanted to play though) and she’s still learning the controls. She has expressed interest in other games as well, but I’m not 100% sure she’d actually enjoy them once she starts playing. I haven’t pushed her to try too many different games because I know how overwhelming it is when you have too many different games you you want to play and then none of them seem fun because you’re too distracted by the others.
